Welcome Remarks for Young Learners Program Featuring NASA astronaut Nicole Stott

Greetings from the National Archives’ flagship building in Washington, DC, which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I’m David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to a special session of the National Archives Young Learners Program, a series of free educational programs that bring the holdings of the National Archives to life using historical characters and special guests.

All of our Young Learner programs are available to watch on our YouTube channel. I invite you to explore previous encounters with Rosa Parks, Theodore Roosevelt, Washington Irving, and many more notable figures of American history.

Dates and information for future programs can be found on the National Archives website—Archives.gov—under Upcoming Events and on the National Archives Facebook page.

This afternoon we meet NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, who spent over 100 days in space aboard the International Space Station and on the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery. She performed a spacewalk (the 10th woman to do so), painted the first watercolor in space, and participated in the first NASA Tweet-Up, in which she sent social media messages from the space station back to Earth. She later reflected on her experience and said "The image of Earth viewed from space as a glowing ball of blue floating against a backdrop of blackness reminded me how special it was to be living in such a unique environment, and the image became the inspiration for my painting."

The National Archives preserves a vast amount of NASA records—the written word, photographs, audio and video recordings, and digital records.

For today’s conversation, we are featuring a newspaper and two photographs relating to Nicole Stott. The Space Center Roundup was the official newspaper of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and this issue announced Stott’s selection for the astronaut candidate class in 2000.

The two photographs were taken during her missions to space. As an artist, Stott was inspired by views such as this image of the International Space Station.

We invite you to further explore National Archives records through DocsTeach, our online teaching tool. The DocsTeach activity featured here highlights Sally Ride, another accomplished NASA astronaut and the first American woman in space.

All the programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff and the National Archives Foundation.

And now it is my great pleasure to welcome our special guest, NASA astronaut Nicole Stott.